Just my life… and coffee

Yarn Dyeing Adventures

I accidentally went a really long time without posting anything. Oops.

I’ve been wanting to try dyeing my own yarn for a really long time, and I finally decided to take the dive last week and get the supplies. Thus Saturday night, my yarn dyeing adventure began.

My first problem is that the bare yarn I ordered did not come in a nice neat skein like literally every tutorial I read online. It wasn’t the first time that I’ve had to re-skein my own yarn, but it was definitely the most challenging. It took nearly 6 hours to undo the knot that had somehow been created from the time I unboxed the yarn to the time I was ready to dye it. In the mean time I grabbed another skein and threw it in the vinegar bath. I couldn’t really find much in the way of “Hey, you should use this much dye!”, so I decided to grab an unmeasured scoop of some of my Wilton’s gel and mix it in. I didn’t really know what I was doing (obviously) but the many tutorials of Pintrest promised that it was really hard to screw this up, so I wasn’t too worried.

I have to say, I’m really happy with the results! There was pretty much no technique at all involved with this skein but I love the way it turned out. I decided to turn my first skein of hand dyed yarn into a hat and I’m so so so happy with it.

After I finally untangled the first mess of yarn, I decided to try making a multicolor skein. In the spirit of upcoming Valentine’s Day I wanted to try pink and purple. Since I’ve only got red, yellow and blue food coloring I had to try and make my own purple. It didn’t turn how I wanted, but I don’t hate it. Now I’m second guessing my color choice because I honestly have no idea who is going to want a pink and purple item of any kind!

Does anyone else dye their own yarn and have any suggestions? I really want to learn some cool techniques!